PyroMarketing

The Future Belongs to the Filter

The Sound of Silence
If I had told you twenty years ago that by the year 2000 we would have flying cars you might have believed me.  If I had said that people would pay $350 for headphones that prevented them from hearing, you would have called the nice men in white lab coats to take me away.

But here they are (the headphones, not the nice men).  Bose sells two models of noise canceling headphones and other manufacturers including Sennheiser, Sony, Phillips, and Audio-Technica, among others, have begun producing their own.

All or Nothing
There was a time when people bought headphones as a way to funnel information into their senses.  Today headphones are a security guard keeping information out. 

A couple of years ago a Yankelovich survey found that one third of Americans would accept a slightly lower standard of living if they could live in a world free from advertising (Mission accomplished.  At $350/pr. those headphones simultaneously block advertising while lowering your standard of living).  In fact, what those expensive but silent headphones seem to be telling us is that it's not just advertising people are desperate to escape.  You and I are overwhelmed by all manner of sensory input.

Daily we are bombarded by information from every angle.  Our overtaxed minds are weary from trying to make sense of it all.  Where do we store that news story about genocide in Africa?  How do we make sense of that new economic indicator?  Paris Hilton is in jail, SO WHAT!!!!!!!!  Enough already.  Stop the noise.

The Future Belongs to the Filter
I think noise canceling headphones are a compromise that foretells the future.  People don't want to block all sound, they want to block irrelevant sound.  But, with no way to separate the relevant from the irrelevant some people would rather block it all than try to sort through it themselves.Those folks currently settle for noise canceling headphones.

As the world races toward increased connectivity and more information, I think a new and larger opportunity is on the horizon: The Filter.  The more confusing the world becomes, the more we will crave clarity.  The more information accosts us, the more we will need a way to sort through it.  Less is becoming more in a very true sense.  Consider these examples:

Progressive:  Progressive doesn't sell insurance so much as it sells insurance quotes.  It's a filter for insurance companies.  They serve customers by sorting through the nearly-indecipherable jungle of insurance plans to filter out the one that's best for you.

NetFlix: The benefit of Internet's largest movie rental business is not is huge selection, it's the proprietary algorithm that helps you find a movie you will enjoy.  Netflix realizes this is where its value resides and that is why it is offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can devise an algorithm that improves consumer satisfaction results by more than 10%.  Netflix is also a filter.

Consumers say they want selection, but they don't define selection as limitless choice.  Selection is having the one item they want.  Choice without the ability to select the best alternative is as worthless as no inventory at all.

The future will increasingly paralyze us with choice, that's why the future belongs to the filter.  Do you agree?  Does the future belong to the filter? What other examples do you see?   Spread the fire. GS

Make a Name For Yourself

My friend Scott Ginsberg just published a new book called Make a Name for Yourself.  Over 2300 days ago Scott made a decision that changed his life.  While leaving a conference where everyone was wearing a name tag, Scott watched as people threw them away as they walked out the door.  He wondered what would happen if he left his on.  He did and has been wearing one everyday since that pivotal moment.

He discovered that he was more approachable when wearing a name tag.  If people knew his name they were more likely to say hi, or to smile, or both.  He turned that simple decision into a career and has since become the recognized expert on approachability.

Scott is also a PyroManiac.  As an author and entrepreneur he is selling his new book and prefers that you buy a copy.  However, he also recognizes that people have promotional potential and understands that customer evangelists are more valuable than sales, so he is also touching people with the match by giving his book away as a free download.

Please take a moment to explore his site and learn about (or even download) his new book by clicking here.  Spread the fire. GS

Empathic Curiosity

Last Friday night my fifteen-year-old son went to see Pirates of the Caribbean III .   The next morning he teased his younger sister Shelby.  "You won't believe what happens to Will," he said.  Upon hearing those words Shelby absolutely had to know what happened to Will and pestered Dominic until he divulged his secret.

Moments later Shelby came into the living room where Amy and I were enjoying our morning coffee.  "Can I tell you what happened to Will in Pirates of the Caribbean," she asked?  She squirmed back and forth on the couch awaiting our answer.  "Please, please, please," she said.

What curious behavior.  Why would Shelby care about the fate of a character in a movie she hadn't yet seen.  Stranger still, why would Shelby be so eager to tell me and Amy?  We hadn't even expressed any interest in knowing, yet she was desperate to tell.  The answer, I think, sheds some light on the forces that power word-of-mouth.

Curiosity
Curiosity is defined as "a gap in knowledge."  (There's a nice explanation of this in the book Made to Stick) Notice that it's not the absence of knowledge, but rather a gap.  This means you must possess some knowledge before you can experience curiosity.  Visually it looks like this.

Shelby possessed some existing knowledge of Pirates of the Caribbean.  She had seen the first two films.  However, when Dominic said, "You won't believe what happens to Will"  he planted the knowledge ("something happens to Will") and created a gap (Shelby didn't know what happens to will) filled by Shelby's curiosity.

Okay, that makes sense but doesn't explain why Shelby cared whether Amy and I knew what happened to Will?  Why did she want to make certain that we knew?

Empathic Curiosity
I believe Shelby wanted to tell me what happened to Will because she recognized the gap in my knowledge.  I didn't see the gap, but she did, and it drove her nuts.  She was as desperate to close my gap as she had been to close her own.  She was experiencing what I call "empathic curiosity."

Empathic curiosity occurs when you notice a gap in someone else's knowledge and feel the curiosity they would feel if they knew about their gap.  It is responsible for sayings like, "You don't know what you're missing" and also explains, in part, why people are so motivated to tell certain other people about new products. 

As with curiosity, empathic curiosity requires a knowledge gap and thus some base-level of knowledge in which the gap can appear. Shelby knew I had seen the first two movies.  She recognized that I knew the character Will, and so might care about his fate.  She also knew I was unaware of what happened to him.  She saw both the knowledge and the gap and so felt curiosity on my behalf.

Interestingly, Shelby felt no compulsion to tell other people she encountered that day.  They too may have seen the movie and might have been equally interested in what happened to Will, but Shelby was unaware of their knowledge.  She didn't know what they knew.  Oblivious to any gaps, she did not feel empathic curiosity.  This might explain why word-of-mouth occurs most frequently between with close personal relationships.  We are more aware of their knowledge than we are of a stranger's or casual acquaintance's and thus better able to see and respond to their gaps.

Neither did Shelby tell people who had already seen the movie; like our neighbor Aaron who had gone to see it with Dominic.  She deemed Aaron's knowledge complete.  Without gaps, no curiosity could exist and thus no motivation to share what she knew.

If empathic curiosity motivates word-of-mouth, then mass advertising can actually inhibit it by creating the perception of complete knowledge.  If I think my neighbor also saw an ad even though they hadn't, then I don't perceive a gap and I won't share what I know.

On the other hand, if used properly then mass advertising could also enhance word-of-mouth.  Such a plan might use mass advertising to create a general base of knowledge among consumers (there is a character named Will) before seeding interesting details (you won't believe what happened to Will) with select consumers through less obvious but viral means like online video or email. In this scenario mass creates the knowledge and viral marketing creates the gap.  Together they produce empathic curiosity that fuels word-of-mouth.

I need to think about this some more, but it's an idea that interests me a lot because it suggests specific plans for creating word-of-mouth campaigns.  What's your take?

Spread the fire. GS

What You Lookin' At?

I was working with a group of media planners the other day on their client's advertising schedule for the coming year.  I asked them how they arrived at the plan. 

They said they typically began by looking at the client's advertising schedule from the previous year and its  budget for the coming year before crafting a new plan.  If they had a competitive analysis, then it's findings would also influence the plan.  In this case, a competitive analysis was a list of the advertising the company's competitors had done in the previous year.

This approach creates advertising plans based on two sources of information.

1. Focus on self. Companies that create new advertising plans based on previous advertising plans alone are self-referential.  It's called autopoiesis, and it means "self creation." It refers to manufacturing one's own reality.  In metaphysics self-referencing is "subjectivity." Subjectivity is limited to the subject's point of view and is, therefore, influenced by the subject's bias. This approach assumes the company has been right all along.  But it's really difficult to get an accurate picture of reality if you only stare at your own navel. 

2. Focus on competition.  This is more like staring at your competitor's navel. It assumes the competition is right and copies its plans.  Unfortunately, the competition was probably self-referencing and so now your plans are subject to its biases which may be no better than your own.

I prefer a third approach.

3. Focus on consumer. The goal of advertising is to increase sales.  Consumers are the ones who buy and so consumers should be the focus of our advertising plans.  Who needs the benefits your product provides?  How are consumer's currently trying to solve that problem?  Where are they currently searching for answers?  Can you meet them in those places with news of your product or service?  Create advertising plans by listing those opportunities.  If you do, then your plans will probably be different from last year's plan and your competitors', but also much more likely to connect with the people with the power to improve your business--the consumer.

Spread the fire.  GS

You Must Be Yolking

If it seems like advertising is everywhere, well, that's because it is.  The same, "just get your message in front of consumers" approach that gave you ads above urinals and on air sickness bags now brings you ads on eggs.  No, I'm not making this up.

Apparently the idea began with spraying freshness dates on eggs but expanded to include advertising.  Now for $125,000 EggFusion will etch your advertising message on the shells of 24 million eggs.  For $10 million it can appear on one billion nine hundred twenty million of them.  Chickens can barely comprehend such numbers are are exhausted by the very thought.

Who would do this, you ask?  Well, last fall CBS Television promoted its lineup of new shows with egg advertising.

Think of the challenge this creates for CBS sales people who every day  must convince marketing executives to spend millions promoting their products with television advertising on its network.  Yet, when it came time to promote its own shows, CBS elected to etch messages onto eggs. 

If KFC advertised on eggs then you would have unborn chickens promoting dead ones and a new spin on an age-old question:  "What came first, the fried chicken or the advertising egg?"

And that reminds me an ironic question raised by Justin Foster of Blueline Grassroots Marketing in Boise, ID.  The other day he asked, "Have you ever seen an ad for an advertising agency? Doesn't it seem odd that advertising agencies don't use advertising to promote their own businesses?"

I couldn't remember seeing an ad for an ad agency.  Have you?  Leave a comment if you have.

Spread the fire. GS

Key Changes in the Music Business

I spoke at the Gospel Music Association convention in Nashville two weeks ago where I noticed evidence for the considerable changes the music industry has been undergoing.

Retail sales have been in decline for the last several years.  Major chains like Tower Records have gone out of business entirely while retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy have reduced the space they give to recorded music products. There are fewer and fewer places to buy a physical CD.

It is also harder to promote them, even for established artists.  Explaining his decision to allow General Motors to use his song Our Country in television ads for pickup trucks, John Mellencamp confided, "Tom Petty had released a new record.  I thought the single was great, but I never heard it [on the radio].  So it just clicked in my head: the days of having a song get on the radio based soley on quality are long over.  If Petty can't get on the radio, nobody my age can."

But it isn't the music business that's hurting, it's the record business; and there is a difference.  From concerts to American Idol, music is hotter than ever.  CD's are not.  However, to capitalize on this difference the industry must be willing to recognize and act upon it.  Succeeding in the music business will require record labels to change what they value.

Since the industry's beginning, the record business valued the artist's intellectual property most highly.  This amounted to the song and its recording on a physical piece of product.  Music publishers protected songs with copyrights.  Record labels protected the physical product with copy protection laws and DRM technology.  They promoted it with radio airplay and sold it from brick and mortar stores. But times are changing.

While it remains important, I don't think an artist's intellectual property--their song in any format, even downloads--is the most valuable asset any longer.  I now believe the single most valuable asset is the artist's relationship with their fans. 

The artist, and to some extent their music, are the hub of an affiliation network comprised of fans.  The artist's ability to build, nurture, and monetize that fan base is the measure of their worth and predicts their future success.  Artists that build fan databases and routinely interact with that community will succeed. Artists that rely solely on their music by hoping anonymous fans flock to each new record will struggle.

Ironically, record labels' increasingly strident attempts to protect the physical product from piracy can alienat fans.   In other words, record labels often sacrifice the most important asset as they try to preserve the value of the second.  As a result, music fans still love their favorite artists, but are learning to hate their labels.

A company called Echo Music understands this value shift and creates websites for music artists designed to maximize their relationship with fans.  Their work with artists like Dierks Bentley and Brad Paisley are great examples.  These artists, and dozens more on Echo Music's roster, are building gigantic fan bases and learning how to leverage that relationship with more than a new CD each year. By saving the coals they are able to connect to their fans and connect their fans to each other in a way that adds value to the artist and, by extension, to each new piece of physical product they produce.

Spread the fire. GS

Immersivision Touches Vacationers with the Match

I was in Whistler British Columbia, just north of Vancouver, a couple of weeks ago to speak to the Mountain Travel Symposium where I had the pleasure of meeting Glenn Iles of Immersivision.  Glenn's company has innovative technology that enables people to experience a resort before deciding to travel there.  That's a big deal as anyone who has ever wasted a vacation at a resort that didn't live up to its brochure photos can attest.

Immersivision lets you take a walking tour around an entire resort.  You can explore your room or the pool or even ski down a mountain and do it all seamlessly.  It's pretty cool and a wonderful example of touching travelers with the match. 

Give it a try for yourself by exploring Whistler by clicking here.   Just click on the "Launch Player" text and then explore North America's largest ski resort.  Then ask yourself which would be more compelling to you as a consumer; select still photos chosen by the resort's marketing director or a 360 degree video walking tour? 

Could this technology help you give people an experience with your product or service?  Learn more and contact Glenn through their website at http://www.immersivision.com/.  Spread the fire. GS

May I Have Your Attention

I predict that, in the not-to-distant future, advertising as we know it will be completely transformed by a single (inevitable?) event.  An irate consumer will sue an advertiser for trespassing on his or her personal attention and win a significant monetary judgment.  The successful argument will go something like this:

My attention is finite, it has value, and it belongs to me.  Advertisers who attract my personal attention without my permission steal something of value for which I deserve compensation.

My Attention is Finite:
As social psychologist Herbert Simon has shown, each of us has a limit to our mental capacity.  It's called Bounded Rationality.  As our attempts to process new information eclipse our capacity, we no longer possess the mental juice to make rational decisions based on the careful evaluation of all the facts.  Therefore, exposing me to information overload causes me harm by hijacking my attention, reducing my mental capacity, and inhibiting my ability to make the best decisions for me and my family.

My Attention has Value:
Smarter people routinely make more money in our society, as do those with higher educations.  Clearly, increased mental capacity has increased value.  Further proof that my attention has value is the fact that other people and organizations can sell my attention to advertisers for significant sums of money.

When I control my own attention I can apply my mental resources to my job, my family, my hobbies, my faith, and even to entrepreneurial endeavors that profit me and the people I love.  When it is taken by others, though, they steal the thing that governs my ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. 

My Attention Belongs to Me:
My attention resides within my mind.  Advertisers who access my attention via my senses without my permission are trespassing.  When they do this they steal a finite resource and its value--hijacking it for their profit and making it unavailable to its rightful owner.  When this happens, advertisers win and I lose.

The successful litigant will go on to estimate the value of their lost attention and be awarded treble damages.  Then all bull pucky will break lose as consumers in every state, encouraged by greedy torte attorneys, will file their own suits(think tobacco companies) .  At last, concerned for the economy, the government will stem the tide of litigation by enacting strict advertising regulations designed to preserve the consumer's personal attention.

The headwaters of this revolt are already forming at www.attentiontrust.org.  A book called NetWorth, first published in 1999, also hinted at this problem.

I hope my prediction is wrong.  But for advertisers to avoid this fate they have got to begin respecting the consumer's attention by working harder than ever to deliver ONLY relevant messages to eager recipients.  Spread the fire. GS